More than 130,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Iraq this Veterans Day. Meanwhile the aging population of veterans of past wars alive to mark the holiday shrinks by 1,700 each day. Communities across the country are scrambling for people to march in parades and conduct commemoration ceremonies. Some organizers are canceling or curtailing events in response to the shortage. Others have called on local Cub Scouts to fill in. At Northwestern’s members of the Naval ROTC offer three solemn gestures to honor those who have served in the nation’s military in war and in peacetime.
At 10:30 Tuesday morning, seven NU midshipmen will render a 21-gun salute to cap Evanston’s observance of Veterans Day in Fountain Square. Naval ROTC members hold this as an ancient tradition that — through a complete discharge of one’s ammunition — represents surrendering oneself to the party being honored.
John Scheler, a Weinberg junior in Naval ROTC, will call the salute this year. “I think it is a personal honor to lead the salute,” he said. “I’m humbled by the significance of it.” As a future veteran, Scheler isn’t intimidated by the gravity of the ceremony. “It doesn’t scare me, but it does make me think about the depth of what I’m getting into.”
Retired Army Staff Sgt. Bo Price, 81, a World War II veteran, will emcee the event Tuesday morning, as he has for at least 15 years — he has lost track of the exact number of times. But Price clearly recalls the impact of NU Naval ROTC’s annual salute. “The members of (the Naval) ROTC at Northwestern are going to be officers of the U.S. Armed Forces,” he said. “At the ceremony their rifle squad will pay respects to those who have gone before them.”
At 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, University President Henry Bienen, four midshipmen and the Naval ROTC battalion’s Color Guard will stage a second event, this one on campus. They will lay a wreath on the World War II memorial at the northeast corner of University Library, near the entrance to Norris University Center. The midshipmen will also read the names of NU alumni killed in conflict and sound “Taps.” This simple ceremony will last 15 minutes.
Eight midshipmen commemorated the national holiday beyond Evanston Monday by sharing their relatives’ military stories with residents of The Admiral at the Lake, a retirement home on Chicago’s North Side.
“I just wish there was more I could do,” said Christina Metz, a Weinberg freshman in the battalion who spoke about her great-grandfather’s brother, a German immigrant who ended up fighting Hitler’s forces as a U.S. Marine in World War II. “But I can just do my best,” she said. “The veterans did what they had to do. I can honor them for doing their job by doing mine.”
Weinberg sophomore Emily Bauer coordinated the visit to the residence. She read a letter that her grandfather, a member of the Navy’s Construction Battalion in World War II, had written home to his wife from the Admiralty Islands in the Pacific Ocean after he had been notified of the birth of his son, Bauer’s uncle, in Chicago. The letter reads in part: “The time will come, honey, when we will be together again. It will be a better world to live in then. That is what I am fighting for now, so our child will have a chance to be somebody when he grows up and he won’t have to go to war to fight and suffer like the boys of today are doing. This war should end all wars. We are going to see to it this time.”
Bauer said reading the letter almost made her cry. “It made me feel closer to my grandfather, whom I never met,” she said. “And it makes me proud to be entering the military, because my kids will be like, ‘Oh, my mom did that, too.'”
All veterans have served and for that are worth tears and thanks. With three small symbolic acts, NU’s Naval ROTC battalion hopes to help summon both.
